I've never seen the rules one should follow when releasing a device that might end up in millions of hands, but I'm sure they include the following:

1) Don't use an unstable hack to enable a feature that a very large percentage of potential users will be counting on.
2) Don't base a feature on a cat-and-mouse game. Especially with the likes of Apple, who are really good at that particular game.
3) Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup. Jobs was bragging about patents in the iPhone announcement keynote, for Christ sake.

I think Palm is counting on them yelling than then Palm will lean on them with their patents.

Remember Palm defined this space long before Apple did and from a few quotes from palm recently they are going to use that as leverage.

Quote from Palm CEO:

"The whole area of patents is elaborate; a lot of issues there, and a very complex area. One of the things we've done over 15 years is build a very extensive patent portfolio in the mobile computing space, one of the highest-rated patent portfolios in this space, which contains more than 1,500 patents. And the reason you do that is to have a defensive position in the marketplace. It's kind of like two little porcupines going around, and you don't want to touch each other because you might get stung. You peacefully coexist and everything's OK and we keep working together."

I doubt it. Both of them could start firing volleys at each other, but who has more money and could keep the case tied up for a few very expensive years? Apple. They have hordes of lawyers and boatloads of cash to keep them going. Palm doesn't have nearly as much capital for that kind of job. They'd be foolish to deliberately try testing Apple's legal mettle.

I can't imagine a major competitor to the Apple iPhone will be allowed to do this without a lawsuit smacking them in the face. Then again, perhaps Palm wants a lawsuit to bring additional media attention to their device.

Seems like a risky move by Palm, their entire future most likely rests on this device. Without it succeeding the risk of Palm going under are pretty high. Might as well shoot for the fences I guess.

It's unlikely that this was the work of a 'rogue engineer.' Palm's Pre team is run by a former Apple VP who hired away Apple iPod team employees to join his new Palm Pre team. There's almost no chance that this wasn't intentional and by design, using inside information that the former Apple employees had. Apple, being famously litigious, will almost certainly try to build a case. On what basis is unclear—perhaps non-compete violations, perhaps trade secrets.

From the sounds of it, this hack isn't based off any information that can't be had with trivial USB sniffing. As others have put it, this is no more complex than changing the useragent string for your web browser.

Why would Apple sue over this? On what grounds? There's no copy protection being circumvented, no cryptography being broken, it's a plaintext response. Also remember when that when Apple suggested legal trouble [boingboing.net] for Palm, Palm suggested that they wouldn't hesitate to strike back [boingboing.net] with their own patent portfolio. I can't see either party taking anything to court.

I agree. This would mean more revenue for Itunes. You don't have hardware lock in.... Oh that is anti Apple thinking there..... The only tangible reason Apple would sue is this would be in direct competition with its overprices Iphone. Plus you would not be locked in to AT&T or is AT&T the only vendor that will have this phone too?

I *LIKE* the BB/Treo keyboard styles, so landscape style keyboards kind of ruin the experience for me. After playing with a G1 last night, I'm not convinced. I think it's come down to a WinMo treo, BB 8900, or the Pre if I like how it feels.

I've been a Verizon customer for 12 years. I love my service - I'm loath to leave, but Verizon has been on the shit-end of the smartphone arena for too long.

What I *REALLY* want, is the old style Palm Visors with graffiti area to come back and just get rid of all the buttons. I was so much better at graffiti than typing, and we could have MASSIVE screens in the same form factor. I *LOVED* my Kyocera 6035.

I'm pretty sure that they both know that in the end Apple would come out ahead in any legal battle. If just by the size of their coffers. But Palm doesn't want to go down that road. Apple doesn't either.

In order to gain a successful antitrust verdict you need to be something of a monopoly (which iTunes and more generally Apple clearly isn't)

What makes you say that? A quick google search shows most sites estimate iTunes market share as between 50% and 70% of the legal downloads market. That's comfortably enough for most regulators to consider it a monopoly.

Of course being a monopoly isn't illegal. It only becomes a problem when you try to use your monopoly in one area to create or expand a monopoly in another. Say like taking a monopoly in digital music sales and using it to help a monopoly in digital music players? Maybe or maybe not. Still, I'd be hesitant to describe Apple's digital music business as something other than a monopoly.

With the removal of DRM, there's no issue of monopoly whatsoever. 70% of the market is not 100% of the market; a clever player who can work a deal could get in and take over a big chunk of that.

The only issue before was the fact that anything you bought on the ITMS would only work on the iPod. While that sort of software-hardware vendor lock-in still does not constitute a monopoly--there are other stores that work with other devices--the removal of DRM means that you can buy from ITMS and play your files on anything. You might just have to take an extra step of importing your music into a different piece of software.

If anyone were to take that to court and claim that this requirement constituted a monopoly, the judge would try to say, between fits of laughter, "Buy your music from a different store and use that store's music management software. Now GTF out of my courtroom!"

For Apple's iPod/iTunes ecosystem to be considered a monopoly they would have to be doing things like offering discounts to vendors for not carrying other portable music players or making music bought from iTunes deliberately unplayable by other portable music players [...] or possibly by locking iTunes down to only provide syncing functionality to the iPod.

Incorrect. Those are the sort of things that could get them in trouble once they already had a monopoly -- leveraging their music monopoly into a hardware monopoly. Having a monopoly in the first place isn't illegal; using your monopoly position to block potential competitors is.

Silly Apple, if it only identifies its devices via a USB identifier, but interacts with them in standard, easily emulated ways, all the while going for the exclusivity angle.

If it's only identifying devices in a standard, easily enumerated way - then they obviously are not going for the exclusivity angle. That part is your assertion but actual technical details seem to prove your assertion wrong.

Silly Palm, for thinking Apple will take this lying down.

I honestly don't think Apple will care much. It leads to more people buying things from iTunes after all and cements the dominance of iTunes for managing media. Perhaps they even did this in conjuction with Palm... if you think about it they would have been smart to do so.

But kudos for the balls to do it anyway.

Can't argue with that. Palm is an amazing company to come back the way they have, makes me think of the Palm of old...

I honestly don't think Apple will care much. It leads to more people buying things from iTunes after all and cements the dominance of iTunes for managing media. Perhaps they even did this in conjuction with Palm... if you think about it they would have been smart to do so.

Think of iTunes as a driving force between iPod sales rather than the iPod as a driving force behind iTunes sales and you'll understand why Apple may be against this.

1) This is impossible for Apple to block. If according to USB it's an iPod, how can Apple distinguish? They can try to see if any little details are missing, but in the end any probing they do can easily be met by Palm.

Nor is it even unsafe, because the code to support older iPods is pretty stable and will not change over time - the older iPods will always be supported.

2) I'm pretty sure Apple sill not sue. What legality is there around USB identifiers? Nothing. The only hook there is the Apple string in the ID, but I don't think it's enough to put a case around. Why bother with the expense of a suit.

There was an earlier case involving game carts and embedded trademarked identifiers where it was ruled that another company was allowed to use a particular trademark embedded in ROM because it was required to enable the full functionality of the game machine. So using your trademarked name as a "magic number" will not prevent others from connecting to your device or software legally. Once you use the trademark for a purpose other than identifying your business or product, it may become fair game in that other context.

If they were misrepresenting themselves to USERS as an Apple device in order to make sales (like the famous "Rollex Watch"), then they'd be in big trouble, but if all they're doing is misrepresenting themselves to the machine in order to get around some technical limitations of the software, then they should be fine.

They are pretending to be an Apple device. I don't think that's legal.

What's the charge? "Impersonating an Apple Device"? What law is that exactly...

As I noted, the only hook is that the USB id has the word Apple which could be a trademark violation... but all the car adaptors looking for iPods have the word "Apple" embedded in order to look for said iPods. There's a strong case to be made that the string is there for the purpose of interoperability.

I don't even think it's grey enough an area to be worth a lawsuit. Did you hear of a suit filed today? Apple has known exactly how this mimicing would work for a few weeks now, you would have heard something either before or around launch.

There's absolutely no trademark issue. Trademarks are for consumer protection. Its to stop people from assuming your product is somehow related to another. The user will never assume its an Apple device as they know full well its a Palm device. Only the machine will be confused.

Sega v. Accolade protects trademark infringement that is necessary for the purpose of interoperability:

Because the TMSS has the effect of regulating access to the Genesis III console, and because there is no indication in the record of any public or industry awareness of any feasible alternate method of gaining access to the Genesis III, we hold that Sega is primarily responsible for any resultant confusion.

Well, if you read the article you would see that "the root USB node (IOUSBDevice) still identifies the device as a Palm Pre", therefore it appears that there are checks that could be put into the next version of iTunes to block this. If Apple were a bit smarter, they would make iTunes available for 50 quid for non-iPod devices.

Well, if you read the article you would see that "the root USB node (IOUSBDevice) still identifies the device as a Palm Pre", therefore it appears that there are checks that could be put into the next version of iTunes to block this.

That's Palm being kind.

But that's a simple adjustment for Palm though if needed. Again, in the end this approach cannot be blocked without blocking legacy iPods if Palm is serious about keeping it. I don't think Apple will make much of an attempt, if any, to block it... an iTu

Apple could probably block this fairly easily, actually, without breaking support for any of their own products.

1.)Release new version of iTunes that checks specifically for the Pre.
2.)Release new firmware for existing iPods to ensure they work with the new version of iTunes.
3.)Require a firmware update in order to work with the current version of iTunes.
4.)Require a current version of iTunes in order to access the iTunes store.

And just like that, we have a new version of iTunes that's incompatible

1.)Release new version of iTunes that checks specifically for the Pre.2.)Release new firmware for existing iPods to ensure they work with the new version of iTunes.

You just lost me at step 2.

The fact is that firmware upgrades for older iPods are unlikely to be installed by users for some time. It could take a year or more for that to propagate.... not to mention that whatever change you make to the older iPods can more easily be mimicked by Palm than it is to put together for Apple at this point! Apple w

This is impossible for Apple to block. [...] Nor is it even unsafe, because the code to support older iPods is pretty stable and will not change over time - the older iPods will always be supported.

As Jon points out in TFA, the Pre still identifies itself as a Pre on it's root device node, even when it's in Media Sync mode, so it's trivial to block, it only requires Apple do so.

More broadly, Apple can make any scheme like this very difficult for a lot of people for a very long time, enough to make the feature impractical for casual use, which is the whole principle of DRM anyways. Apple can push firmware updates to the old iPods and make the old owners upgrade before moving on to iTunes 9, or iTunes

2) I'm pretty sure Apple sill not sue. What legality is there around USB identifiers? Nothing.

Yet. Apple has sufficient confidence in its litigation tactics to bet a little on the chance of creating by judicial action a new legally-protected pseudo-category of the ever-nebulous legal entity called "Intellectual Property" for Apple-distinctive technical identification data. Especially if they can paint Palm's methods as a circumvention device (irrespective of which copyrights are having their protection "

1) This is impossible for Apple to block. If according to USB it's an iPod, how can Apple distinguish? They can try to see if any little details are missing, but in the end any probing they do can easily be met by Palm.

If I was Apple, and I intended to be nasty: I would find exactly what iPod model the Pre pretends to be (should be trivial). Next, iTunes checks all the time whether your iPod needs any new software. So Apple fixes a few bugs in that iPod model. Next time you connect your iPod to iTunes, its firmware gets updated. Next time you connect your Pre to iTunes, well, iTunes attempts to install iPod software on a Pre and I have no idea how happy the Pre will be with that:-(

Do you think Apple wants a bunch of calls from Pre users? Do you think there aren't a whole lot of them who don't know or don't care that Apple isn't responsible for it? All the users will know is that Apple purposely broke a certain functionality of their phone on purpose. That'll be awesome for Apple's PR team.

Nor is it even unsafe, because the code to support older iPods is pretty stable and will not change over time - the older iPods will always be supported.

But iPods can get firmware updates.

The older iPods will always be supported. But do you know what happens if you plug in a first generation iPod right now and don't permit iTunes to update its firmware?

All Apple has to do is put out firmware updates for all the legacy iPods (which they really have done in the past) and require those upgrades for iTunes to continue working. Apple can block this if they want to.

Which is kinda stupid on Palm's part, IMO.

You can use iTunes with other MP3 players -- I have several that still work with it. If iTunes sees a driver for your music player, it'll work with it. Palm could have done whatever they wanted and distributed a driver for their device, or they could have emulated a non-Apple device for which iTunes already had a driver (eg. Diamond Rio), which Apple doesn't have the freedom to require firmware updates for. I can understand why they didn't do the former -- they want users to be able to just plug in the devices and have them work, rather than installing device drivers. But I think it was unnecessarily risky to spoof an Apple device.

1) This is impossible for Apple to block. If according to USB it's an iPod, how can Apple distinguish?

You didn't read all the links in the article.

It's not the case that it's an iPod according to USB. That's not what Palm did.

It's a USB device with an array of sub-devices. The mass storage portion claims to be an iPod mass storage device... but if you look at the whole tree, you can see that it's connected via a Palm device.

The Pre does not pretend to be an iPod instead of a Pre. It pretends to be a Pre with an iPod inside it. Even easier for Apple to block than I had thought, if they care at all.

The USB Consortium's peripheral compliance [usb.org] checklist is pretty clear on the matter. If the vendor IS you're using doesn't match the vendor on your application, you're not compliant. I don't know how this affects your ability to get a logo or a license, however.

It's not like the USB certification is required to sell anything. It's just a way to put a logo on a box, a logo Palm does not really need. Everyone knows it connects via USB and the cable is standard...

It's hardly novel -- my Nokia phone has done this for the last 2 or more years and I have no reason to believe other phones haven't been doing it for far longer. The only difference is that my phone doesn't have an "iPod mode".

These types of hacks used to be common. Everybody had their own proprietary protocols and did everything they could to lock customers into their own high-priced peripherals. Companies constantly hacked other companies' protocols and interfaces so they could offer alternatives.

These days this is rare because now the industry knows the value of standards, open when possible. In hindsight I think Palm has the right idea in trying to interface with iTunes for media syncing.

Well, there is a standard for media syncing [wikipedia.org], but it's developed by Microsoft and apparently not followed. Especially by Microsoft with their Zune, as they decided to ignore the standards they had created and sold to third-party developers in favor of something that only works with their software.
Mass storage mode still seems to work better. Again, Microsoft will allow watching a video on the Xbox 360 from a mass storage device but not a MTP device.

*If* this is the only way to get data from iTunes, then spoofing the model and vendor should be like the Game Boy requesting an image of the Nintendo logo at bootup. There was a court ruling back in the 90s (Sega vs Galoob, I think) that said the image was treated as a password to go through the BIOS bootup, therefore, anybody could put it in their games. This is probably a completely different ball game, though.

At the end of the day, I guess I'm missing why everyone thinks Apple would care?

The Pre isn't sold by AT&T, and in the US everyone is basically tied to long term carrier based contracts to get smart phones. So if you own a Pre, you're not going to be getting an iPhone for at least a year or two at best.

So why would you want to block the device from working with your music store at that point? There's no lost hardware sale, but if you play nice you'll keep getting music sales. Maybe if you do a good e

You really think that there isn't a SINGLE Apple employee who couldn't get hold of a Pre if they wanted to, or that they don't already have one? Even in their hardware, PR, developer etc. departments? And that "revelation" was basically revealed by plugging the device in and looking at the usbid... lsusb would have done it in a single command and there are even prettier interfaces for Windows for free.

Obscurity is a waste of time when you're hoping the *designers* of a system don't realise how you've worked around it - it's like "telling" the DVD forum about the CSS hack - they already know *how* you circumvent it, but they may not know the exact method by which you discovered it (that's the bit that *doesn't* matter). The designers of any such system already know, or it would take seconds to make 10 guesses at how, and it would take minutes to actually discover how even without basic knowledge - you just run it through a debug version of iTunes and see what happens.

Don't be silly. It's like saying Microsoft don't know how people are installing pirate copies of Windows, or upping the TCP connection limit, or Nintendo not knowing how the Wii hacks work. It takes *seconds* for them to work it out once it's been revealed, even if they would never have thought of it. They DESIGNED the system, after all.

On the one hand, this seems a brilliant and gutsy move by Palm. On the other hand, I really dislike devices or applications that pretend to be a competitor's. On the third hand, I dislike even more that this is sometimes necessary to provide some reasonable amount of interoperability.

What would be hilarious is if during the trial they break open a Pre and there's a Nano inside.:-)

...when the Pre is in "Media Sync" mode it identifies itself as an Apple iPod. However, it's only the Mass Storage interface that identifies itself as an iPod. The root USB node (IOUSBDevice) still identifies the device as a Palm Pre (not visible in the image above). This means that Apple can very easily update iTunes to block the Pre.

Emphasis added by me.

I agree with him: all Apple has to do is add code to check the root USB node, see that the device is a Palm Pre, and refuse to accept the device as an iPod.

P.S. If Palm had just gone to Apple and said "we want to make the Palm Pre sync with iTunes", would Apple have been reasonable about it? I saw a comment on Slashdot mentioning that there are non-Apple devices that sync with iTunes, implying that Apple can be reasonable. But in this case, the Pre is competing with the iPhone! I imagine Apple would do anything they could to sandbag a competitor, including denying iTunes.

Apple won't sue Palm. But I won't be surprised if they do this check and lock the Pre out of iTunes.

P.S. If Palm had just gone to Apple and said "we want to make the Palm Pre sync with iTunes", would Apple have been reasonable about it? I saw a comment on Slashdot mentioning that there are non-Apple devices that sync with iTunes, implying that Apple can be reasonable.

That ability is left-over from the SoundJam days, which is why the list is so antiquated. I'm also pretty sure that whatever sync code there is for 3rd party devices was written by Apple, not the device manufacturer.

Personally, I think this is one of those, "Easier to ask forgiveness than permission" things. Assuming that Apple will sue Palm, this is just another thing that Apple can add to the list and will be worked out in whatever settlement Apple and Palm come to.

iPod firmware can be updated by iTunes. The interpretation of handshaking being done in hardware vs. software is very subjective, given that it's either hardcoded in the hardware(see: old modems) or in firmware(see: software modems).

As far as another person mentioning using ROT13 to invoke DMCA, it wouldn't work. Reverse engineering is allowable(for the moment) to allow interoperability. Palm could easily explain that their device does not enable copyright infringement any

Back on topic, John Gruber has covered this pretty well here [daringfireball.net] and here. [daringfireball.net]

"But is it illegal? And would it be illegal for Apple to take countermeasures against it? My guess is "no" to both questions... I don't think WebOS's media sync is a mistake on Palm's part because it is wrong, I think it's a mistake because it is risky and unnecessary."

This is much the same. Unless the Pre had features built in to make copyright infringement easy, reverse engineering the iTunes-iPod interface for interoperability likely wouldn't be affected by the DMCA.

Given Apple's got a dominant market position in both MP3 players and online media distribution, although I'm hesitant to say a monopoly position, firing back at Palm for this could place them in the antitrust hot seat.

They are circumventing the (very poorly conceived and implemented) technology that enforces the rule that only iPods can connect to iTunes

Which is not a copyright protection technology.

You can't put DRM'd files on the Palm Pre. the Pre does not crack or remove the iTunes DRM. Everything you can do wtih a Pre and iTunes you can do with an iPhone and iTunes. Ergo, Apple hasn't got a leg to stand on.

Neither will Palm if Apple just switches it -- aside from a possible monopoly claim. Really, though, "a rising tide lifts all boats." The more devices look to iTunes, the more iTunes gets used. The more iTunes gets used, the more direct revenue

The thing is, old iPods will always be supported. There is nothing fancy about what Palm is doing here- it's just two bytes that represent "Apple" during the handshake. These are the same two bytes throughout the iPod line, and changing them would mean either: a hack workaround which changed the handshake but that still allowed both new and old, which would allow the Pre to work; or updating iTunes and all the devices to show a new handshake which